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Accounts
Accounts, also referred to as Profiles, were a feature of Nitrome.com as part of the upgrade to Nitrome.com 2.0. They were officially released on July 12, 2013, only to be promptly taken down due to errors. Accounts were then stably re-released on July 17, 2013. On June 13, 2018, accounts were permanently removed from the website in order to avoid potential legal incidents as a result of the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") being launched in May of that same year. Creation Creating an account required the user to fill out a form with a username, password, birth date and email address. The registering user was also given a list of mobile devices, and were required to check off the devices that the user owned. (This information would be used to notify the user if Nitrome released a game compatible with the checked off devices.) Filling out two CAPTCHAs were also part of the account creation process. Once the account was created, the user would be sent a confirmation that requires clicking on the "Confirm email address" link in order to verify the email. Account content After creating an an account on Nitrome.com, the player would have access to a profile to customize, as well as several other features, listed below. Avatars Avatars were images the owner of an account could use to change the account's physical appearance, picture-wise when on comments. The player was given access to several avatars upon creating an account, and could unlock several other avatars by following their specific hints. Badges Badges were a type of reward gained through performing tasks on Nitrome.com, only these tasks were not linked to any game. These included hearting games, replying to comments, and reporting bad users. Identification number Users were given an identification number, which indicated which number Nitromian they were upon signing up. For example, if they were the 1234th user to sign up, they would be given the number 1234. Friends Users could send requests to other users they saw in a game comment or searched for using the search function. A user's username could be manually entered to send them a request, or users could search for another user by other usernames they go by in different games. If the user had linked their Facebook account with their Nitrome account, they were able to invite friends from Facebook to come and make an account, or to be their friend.Nitrome blog: - 2.1 Update Features → You can also invite friends from Twitter and Facebook if you have chosen to link your accounts to Nitrome. You can also accept friend requests from other people. When a friend request was sent, the friend requested would receive a notification, which, when clicked, would take them to their private page that lists all their friends. Here, the user could accept and reject any friend requests currently present. Removing a friend required one to go to that friend's account and click on the "remove friend" button. Becoming friends would allow the two users to send private messages to each other. Hearting When a user hearted a game, it would be added to the user's profile under the "Hearted Games" section. This list was publicly viewable on the user's profile. Comments The most recent comments from the user were listed, with the newest comments at the top. Games Content in games was also updated with the creation of an account. This only included the presents necessary to collect avatars in the levels of certain games. Otherwise, game content was not affected with the creation of an account. Notifications The notifications section listed the five most recent notifications the player had received. Notifications consisted of an icon, text, and at the end of a notification being a red x. A notification was sent to the player when they got a friend request, accepted a friend request, got an avatar, got a badge, or when someone replied to their comment. Deleting a notification did not cause the sixth notification to become visible. The player would simply only have one less notification. Private messages Players weree able to communicate with other players through private messages. Profile boxes Main Article: Profile box Profile boxes were created to give players easy-access links to many account-related things. Linkings Certain features can be done by the user linking their Nitrome account with their Facebook profile. Nitrome plans on adding Twitter account linking compatibility to Nitrome accounts. Linking with Facebook Using their Facebook account, one can either create an account with Facebook or link their Nitrome account with Facebook (once their account is created). Once their account is created, they can log into their Nitrome account with their Facebook account. The account holder can also invite friends from Facebook with their Nitrome account. Commenting Users can comment on Nitrome blog posts and Nitrome game pages. Nitrome blog comments Regular comments Comments appear on a notebook-like background, with a comment displaying the user's avatar, their username next to the outer top-right corner of of their avatar (their name linking to the profile page), and below their avatar (how far down depending by how long the comment is) being the number of day of the month (not weekday number), year, and the time the comment was posted (time is determined by where Nitrome's servers are). To the right of this is a | and the report button, and to the right of this is a | and the reply button. This appearance only applies to regular comments, reply comment are different. Reply comments Reply comments have a slightly different appearance - the avatar is shown, but shrunk, and has the report and reply button to the right of their avatar. The account's name is displayed below their avatar, the comment below their name, and the date. Reply comments are indented to the right, so they can be easily seen as reply comment. For both types of comments, when it is the user's own comment, the report button is replaced with an edit and delete button. Game page comments Game page comments appear as Nitrome blog reply comments. Reply comments to reply comments also appear as reply comments, only that they replies are not indented - the username of a replier is dark grey, while text is light grey. A line separates reply comments from other reply comments and the first comment that started the discussion. Game comments are displayed exactly as Nitrome blog comment when the "all comments" button is clicked. Moderation Nitrome only moderates comments when they read them, and since Nitrome has to go to the page the comment was posted and read the comment to moderate them, only if Nitrome visits the page will the comment be moderated. Alternatively, users can click a report button to report offensive comments, but only for game comments, the report button for Nitrome blog comments instead reports the comment poster's profile. Abuse of the report button Nitrome has realized how the report button can be abused. Because of this, Nitrome has created an anti-abuse system for abusing the report button, a system that will not harm regular users of Nitrome accounts. Nitrome has not spoken of how this system works, however, it is likely to prevent potential troublemakers from finding a way around it. Locating Locating one's or another's profile can be done in various ways. Accessing one's own profile Private mode There are two main ways for a user to access their own profile in private mode, which is to press either of the two own "Profile" buttons. These are located on the Navigation panel (fourth button from the left) and in the Profile box (directly underneath the avatar). One other way a user can access their own profile on private mode is to type in the URL "http://www.nitrome.com/profile/" or "http://www.nitrome.com/profile/?id=_____" in their address bar (for the second address, a number one larger than the user's Nitrome ID must be typed in after the address for it to work). However, a user must be logged in to see their profile in private mode. Public mode It is possible for a user to see their profile page in public mode as well (when logged in). One way to do this is for a user to click on a link of their name from a comment they leave, or from one of their friends' Friends bar/page. Another way is to use the search bar and type in their own username (with the "Users" box checked), and then click on their name. Testing Nitrome has stated that upon releasing accounts, accounts will still be in their beta stages, with Nitromians being the beta testers. Alpha stages The alpha stage is the stage at which Nitrome accounts were still being worked on. Generally, many features were still being implemented and testing could generally not take place. The timespan of the alpha stage is the time when work on accounts began, and the end being when testing of the accounts functions begins. Pre-beta Pre-beta is the stage at which Nitrome began to test the functions of the accounts. This stage was discussed in the April 9th 2013 blog post on the Nitrome blogNitrome blog: - Website Update → section So what’s next? section Main tests. These stages involved the Nitrome team testing out the private messaging system, messing around with the accounts to see if they could get potentially offensive content past the moderation systemNitrome blog - Website Updates → Main Tests → The main tests will consist of the all of us trying to mess around with the user accounts to see if any of our calculated mischief gets past our moderation system., and to make sure everything works properly for regular users. Beta This stage, as described by NitromeNitrome blog: - Upcoming Accounts → Registration →''So you could say that, technically, accounts will be in beta when we launch them and the Nitrome community will be the account stress testers!Nitrome blog: - Website Updates → '''Abusing the report button' → As we said in the previous post, http://www.nitrome.com/blog/articles/828/ the accounts are going to be '''considered to be in beta' as we monitor the use and miss-use of the website.'' is when accounts are made public, so that users can use them. This date was July 12th 2013, however, due to an enormous amount of bugs that hindered the functionality of the site, accounts had to be taken down, but were soon brought back up. Beta elements Nitrome accounts previously had some features that were talked about in previous Nitrome blog posts about Nitrome 2.1, but these features were later taken out for unknown reasons. Possibilities for this are that they cannot be achieved with the current capabilities Nitrome has. First talked about on the 2.1 Update Features (January 20th 2012) blog post on the Nitrome blog, users would have been able to log into their Nitrome account using their Twitter account they linked toNitrome blog: - 2.1 Update Features → Login System and Accounts You can also log into the system using your Facebook or Twitter account.. Nitrome previously referred to Nitrome 2.5 as Nitrome 2.1Nitrome blog: - [http://www.nitrome.com/blog/articles/index-582.html 2.1 Update Features] Downtime On July 13th 2013, the day the accounts went up, they were later taken down due to technical problems. Accessibility during downtime However, on July 17th 2013, it was discovered that by going to the URL http://www.nitrome.com/profile/ , one could log into their account, or create one. This account would function with all games, however, it would only function with game if the " is logged in" message is received. Sometimes, the user of the content would be automatically logged out. Features to be added Nitrome accounts were talked about a lot by Nitrome years before being released, many blog post documenting accounts generally being very long and announcing features accounts would have. Despite the large amount of features being announced prior to the release of accounts, Nitrome has not been able to implement all these features into accounts as soon as accounts were released. Saves When the user creates an account, it is planned for their saves to be inputted into their account, so that when they access their account from a different computer, they can also access their saves.Nitrome blog: - 2.1 Update Features → You will be able to save game information to accounts. This prevents saves from being lost due to site errors. Nitrome blog: - 2.1 Update Features → The new system however will work to prevent your saves from getting lost as may happen when relying on the limitation inherent in shared objects. Nitrome games have to be updated to be able to save the player's progress to their account. Generally, popular new and hearted Nitrome games will have a higher chance of being updated. A selection of older Nitrome games will also be updated to support saving the player's saves to their account. Although the game saves update will not come at the launch of Nitrome 2.1, Nitrome does plan on implementing this via cloud saving.Nitrome blog: - Upcoming Features → This is something saves that a cloud saving system could help us fix for you all so it is on our road map. Game high scores Nitrome plans to release an update for all game high scores to tie in with the friends system, where user's accounts will be displayed on the highscores.Nitrome blog: - 2.1 Update Features → There will be a high scores update that will tie to the friends system (we will roll this out on a per game basis). It is currently not known what this update will do. It is not known if this same update will allow Facebook account compatibility, as spoken about in pre-release material for Nitrome account was the ability for owner of a Nitrome account to tie a high score submitted to a game with their connected Facebook account, and allow them to filter the scores to to let them see who has the best scores out of all their friends. Linking with Twitter Although not provided yet, as spoken of in earlier blog posts on the Nitrome blog, the owner of an account will likely be able to link their account with Twitter, which will allow the user to send invites to friends on Twitters, and talk about high scores they achieved in games with their Twitter followers.Nitrome blog: - 2.1 Update Features → Twitter: You will have the ability to you to link your Twitter account to Nitrome. This will allow us to let you express your score that you achieved for a game and tell your Twitter followers Video game network icons Silently revealed in a few images in updates relating to accounts, images of profile had several buttons, and a few of these buttons were small pixel images of the icons of a few networks created by video game console companies. Although it seemed as though these icons were not released when account were first launched, these icons were simply not made visible, as the image that contains all the icons on the site (File:small_icons_14_14.png) contains these video game images. A video game network icon exists of what resembles a general mobile phone tablet icon (this icon may represent either iPhone, Android, both, or mobile phone gaming as a whole), PlayStation Network icon, Steam icon, Wii icon, Xbox Live icon, and the icon for the Nintendo DS family. If these icons were made available on accounts, the mobile phone tablet icon would have likely allowed for the account holder to input some method of locating them on a mobile phone account of some sort, the PlaySation, Steam, and Xbox Live icon allowing the player to input their account username for those accounts, and Wii and Nintendo DS icon likely allowing the player to input their friend code for those devices. The Nintendo DS icon likely would allow the player to input their Nintendo 3DS friend code, as all Nintendo DS units did not support any method of online identification (except for names given to the console). These icons would allow the user of an account to put in information for other systems they use, so that people who use those same systems would be able to find them. The reasons these icons were not released was that there were a lot of video game networks present (and as such, lots of icons to make), and at the time account were released, Sony and Microsoft were going to release the Playstation 4 and Xbox One (respectively) within the next few months, which was about to start the eighth generation of video games, and due to the change in generation, Nitrome wanted to "hold off" with the feature until they would know what buttons to create. Small_icons_14_14.png|All icons for a profile. From top to bottom: Profile, Nitromian/Friends, Gameplay, Male, Female, Playstation, Steam, Wii, Xbox, Nintendo DS, Birthday, Accept, Decline, Report Previews Future_blog_comments.png|The image previewed on March 7th 2011 NitromeFeature21.png|The image previewed on January 12th 2012 N21profiles2.png|The image previewed on January 20th 2012 Avatars_preview.png|The image previewed on May 4th 2012 Accounts_Preview.png|The image previewed on March 7th 2013 Profiles_update_(April_2013).png|The image previewed on April 9th 2013 Profiles1.png|The comments sidebar before that content is released Blog posts The below Nitrome blog posts have covered accounts. Notably, blog posts that covered accounts tended to be very long. *Future Blog Comments - March 7th 2011 *2.1 Update Features - January 20th 2012 *Upcoming Accounts - March 7th 2013 *Website Update - April 9th 2013 *Accounts Coming Next Week! - July 5th 2013 *Friday Update! - July 12th 2013 Trailer On July 5th 2013, Nitrome released a trailer of the upcoming accounts. Commercial On July 22nd 2013, Nitrome added a video commercial on the main page relating to accounts. File:Account_commercial.png|Screenshot of commercial, with the Professor (Test Subject series), Blue in the Rex209(Test Subject series), Right eye (Colour Blind), Takeshi (Final Ninja series), Chiseler (Chisel series) and Hazmat Hero (Toxic series) File:Account_commercial_2.png|Another screenshot of commercial Trivia *When a user tries to report Nitrome's user account, the message "IT WASN'T ME!" is displayed after clicking through the confirmation prompt. Itwasntnitrome.png|The message *If an user tries to remove Nitrome from their friends list after confirming the action, a message that reads "Nitrome insists on being your friend, deal with it! I'm sure we can work this out :)" will pop up. Nitrome_insists.png|The message References something that will make sense after the nitrome accounts are out. It is a little confusing. Accounts Trailer - 0:21 Nitrome blog: - Friday Update! → Comment by Nitrome: The intention was to let people put in their ids from other systems to make it easy to search for people you know there and so you can tell others those details. We still think its a good idea but there starts to be a lot of them and as we are changing generation we felt we would hold off with this feature until we know what we would have to cater for. }}}} Category:Nitrome.com Category:Beta Category:Nitrome.com 2.5 Category:Accounts